A silence falls. I look at Shane in anticipation and insecurely – altough there is a possibilty for that last expression to be etched into my facial features permanently. I clutch the paper in my hand a little tighter, bite my lower lip.

“It’s only a short version. A draft, you know. I’m not really going to and this in, if that is what you think. I know it isn’t -”

“Porter,” Shane interrupts me calmly. “It’s wonderful. It really is.”

“I know I’ve still got so much to do – find metaphors, maybe puns and I have to find a way to make it more original. On top of all that -”

“Porter, seriously. This stuff is great, I mean it. You’re going to get top grades once again. You are way ahead of me, you know. I’ve got no idea how to handle this assignment.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s true.”

I slump in the comfortable chair where I always read anything I can get my hands on. I bury my face in my hands and sigh deeply. I know there is no point in reading this draft to Shane. My best friend will always say that it’s amazing and that I am so talented. They all say it – teachers, friends, but I know it’s not true. If I am so talented, so gifted, if I have such a way with words, why doesn’t my father ever tell me he’s proud? Why can’t my father care less about what I write down? Why has he never got the time to read some of the papers I get top grades on at school? They must be lying. I don’t know why, but there’s no way I am really good. Maybe I have just ended up in a school where most students tend to have less of the brains than I have. Maybe they just tell me I’m good because they’ve only known real bad. That is true, when I look at the students in my class alone. They are so clueless it sometimes enrages me to my inner core. They have no idea in what kind of world they live. I don’t claim I do – I’m only seventeen as well, but at least I know a bit of what’s going on. At least I don’t have the nerve to ask if anyone has ever dropped a nuclear bomb. It sometimes makes me sick, how little they know. At the same time, I’m jealous at them. Jealous because they lead such an easy life, jealous because they are so… simple. They don’t worry about a thing, the greatest of their concerns is if nobody else has got the shoes they’re wearing. Sometimes I wish I could be like that, just for one day. To be a bit more carefree.